The drive from Ismailia to Assiut takes most of a day. You leave the delta, follow the Nile south, and the land narrows to a green ribbon between two deserts. This is where our pomegranates come from, and after a decade of buying them I still make the trip every September.

Heat makes colour

Pomegranates need long, hot summers to build anthocyanins — the pigments that turn arils from pink to garnet. Assiut delivers forty-degree afternoons for months. The Wonderful variety grown here has a darker aril and a sharper acid balance than fruit from milder coasts, and that acidity is exactly what a frozen aril needs: it keeps the flavour bright after thawing instead of flat and sweet.

Why arils, not whole fruit

A whole pomegranate is mostly peel and pith. Shipping it frozen makes no sense. Our growers deliver whole fruit to a line in the plant where the crown is cut, the fruit is split, and arils are separated in a water bath. Membranes float; arils sink. From there they are dried, inspected under camera, and frozen within the hour.

A good aril snaps. If it bends, the fruit was picked too late or handled too roughly.

The waiting

The season runs from mid-September to November, and the temptation every year is to start early. We do not. Early fruit has pale arils and soft seeds; the sugar is there but the colour is not. Our growers know we will pay a premium for fruit picked at full colour, and they wait with us.

• Harvest window: 20 September – 15 November.
• Typical aril Brix: 15–17.
• Formats: 1 kg retail, 10 kg bulk, IQF free-flow.

If you have only tasted pomegranate arils from a plastic clamshell, ask us for a sample from Assiut. The difference is the reason we make the drive.